50 GFN Radio
Face2face A Heart-to-Heart from GFN
CULTURE & ARTS
As this radio program is in an interview format, I took the liberty of writing the article as an interview as well. — Arlo
A
rlo, the Host: Please tell us about the show. Arlo, the Interviewee: Face2face is a one-hour talk show that airs at 7–8 p.m. on GFN every Sunday night. I am the host, which means that I interview the guests. The show has a great writer, Jang Mi-rang (장미랑), who writes insightful questions as well as books interesting people to come on the show. The show is produced by Kim Mi-young (김미영), who is GFN’s chief producer as well as the person who first hired me seven years ago! I was very excited to work with her again, as she was my producer for my first years at GFN.
www.gwangjunewsgic.com
September 2021
Why is it named “face2face”? The first and most obvious reason is that it is meant as a joke. Describing humor, Kant wrote, “Laughter is an affection arising from the sudden transformation of a strained expectation into nothing.” I think that perfectly describes my intention. Radio is by definition only audio and over distance. It is the opposite of face-to-face. This is the paradox. Then there is the implied meaning of the phrase. If you tell someone you want to do something “face-to-face,” it has a serious connotation. It might be a date, it might be a breakup, or it might be a meeting with your boss. I think it also suggests authenticity, maybe because it has a parallel structure with “heart-to-heart.” Finally, there is the pandemic. I miss seeing people’s faces, smiles on the street, and responses to my exaggerated expression when I am trying to make a joke. A lot of foreigners I know are quite homesick, and all of the Zooms and messengers in the world cannot make up for the feeling of being in a room with your family and friends. I think that a year and a half of mask-wearing and long-distance communication has left us all wishing for a little more face-to-face. This show is meant to make you feel closer, in distance as well as in empathy and understanding.
2021�09��.indd 50
Stylistically, I chose lowercase letters to make it less pretentious, and the number “2” is a transparent attempt to seem hip. Also, it is a play on the fact that the episodes are generally a conversation with two people: host and guest, though at times there are multiple guests. Who do you interview? Are they mostly foreigners or Koreans? The tagline for the show is “These are the great stories of ordinary people.” They are people from different walks of life and different countries, telling us their story of how they got here, what they are doing, and where they will go next. We try to invite guests that are related to something topical in the news. Our first guest was the representative of the local Myanmar community who spoke about resistance to the coup. When there was news of changing tattoo laws in Korea, we invited a local tattoo artist. Other guests come in because they are visiting Gwangju. Two students and a professor associated with the Critical Language Scholarship Program were recent guests. They are here for a short time for an intensive language program. Gwangju is a city of art, and so we also try to have a lot of local content creators as well. Local musicians, YouTubers, puppeteers, and actors have appeared on the show. Finally, some of our guests are people who we think have an interesting story to tell. It could be because of their interesting work, such as a funeral director or a veterinarian. Or it may be that they are involved with something important, like domestic adoption or environmental preservation. What do listeners get from the show? Like any of GFN’s programming, we are serving two
2021-08-26 �� 10:37:16
